Junior Literary Fest registrations to open on October 24
The fifth edition of the Vizag Junior Literary Fest (VJLF), featuring around 100 sessions on storytelling, creative writing, book readings and puppetry, will be held at Hawa Mahal on Beach Road on November 21 and 22. Registrations for the two-day festival, aimed at children aged four to 16, will open on October 24.
Organised by Lit Lantern, an initiative of the Culture & Literature Welfare Society, a registered non-profit organisation, the festival will bring together around 20 authors, illustrators, storytellers and performing artists. The programme will also include author interactions, workshops on emotional well-being, performances, and discussions for parents and teachers.
The sessions will be divided into three age groups, four to seven years, eight to 12 years, and 13 to 16 years, so that children can take part in activities suited to their age.
Registrations will begin at 10 am on October 24 at three locations: the Tanishq showroom on VIP Road, Pages Bookstore at Rednam Gardens, and BookMagic Library in Lawsons Bay Colony. While entry to the festival is free, sessions with limited seating will carry a registration fee of ₹250 each, and advance registration will be required for these sessions.
Authors Shweta Taneja, Samina Mishra, Varsha Seshan, Sanjay Arora, Anushka Ravishankar and Vikas Joshi will lead interactive sessions. Illustrators Canato Jimo, Sonal Gupta Vaswani and Monica Tata will engage children through discussions on their work and creative practices.
Storytelling sessions will be conducted by Akanksha Datta, Vinita Zutshi, Vanita Shah, Neha Singh, Lopamudra Mohanty and Shyama Pannikar. Ayisha Begum will hold workshops on emotional well-being, while mime artist Kunal Motling and clown Rahul Joshi will entertain and engage children through interactive performances. Padmini Rangarajan will take sessions in Telugu.
Both days will conclude with evening performances open to all visitors. The festival will also feature a bookstore offering more than 1,000 titles from Indian publishers.
Further details about the festival and its programme are available at www.litlantern.in, on Facebook at @VizagLitFest and on Instagram at @litlantern. For enquiries, parents, students and schools can contact festival directors Priya at 9866628484, Sonal at 9985122022 or Sandhya at 9849117400.